THE TRADITIONAL MASS: HISTORY, FORM, AND THEOLOGY OF THE CLASSICAL ROMAN RITE

This book is by Michael Fiedrowicz

In view of ever deepening interest in the traditional form of the Roman rite of Mass—which, according to Benedict XVI’s Summorum Pontificum, demands “due honor for its venerable and ancient usage”—a comprehensive but concise introduction to its history, form, and theology is more than ever desirable. In contrast to conventional explanations of the Mass that offer practical or allegorical explanations of particular moments in the rite, the present work attends to the organic process by which the Roman rite was built up from its foundations into a magnificent structure, marked by the accumulated riches of each age through which it passed, and characterized by order, beauty, and piety in its texts, gestures, rubrics, chants, and calendar—ranging from the major elements to the most minute details.

Treated as well are the reality of the sacred and how it is encountered, the irreducible role of ritual action, the eastward direction of prayer, the formation and value of a specialized sacred language, and liturgical participation correctly understood. The author brilliantly expounds the dogmatic fidelity, anthropological realism, pastoral advantages, and inexhaustible theological depth of the traditional Latin Mass, in and through which the harmony of the Catholic lex orandi and lex credendi achieves its most perfect expression and its most powerful impact.

COMMENTS

“Michael Fiedrowicz here accomplishes something well-nigh miraculous: a comprehensive introduction to the elaborate history, complex structure, and sublime theology of the traditional Latin Mass—supported by abundant scholarship—all within the scope of a single highly readable volume. His treatment of organic development, Latin, Gregorian chant, the orations, the Offertory, the Roman Canon, eastward orientation, and the benefits of fixed ritual are among the best I have ever seen. His respectful but incisive critique of defects in last century’s liturgical reform runs like a countermelody against the principal theme. Quite simply, this is the best one-volume work on the classical Roman Mass published since the Second Vatican Council.”

—PETER A. KWASNIEWSKI, author of Noble Beauty, Transcendent Holiness